


Intimacy

by Kileykao



Category: Critical Role (Web Series) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kileykao/pseuds/Kileykao
Summary: He thought that the fact that people don’t touch each other dæmons was the social norm for a reason. That the boundaries that have been pounded into his head his entire life were because everyone disliked their Dæmon being touched like he did.Liam O’Brien changes all of that for him.(or how Sam feel in love with Liam O'Brien without realizing it)
Relationships: Liam O'Brien/Sam Riegel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Own Nature](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21962488) by [breathtaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken). 

> as always, let's keep this to those who want to read it.

**1**. 

Sam Riegel doesn’t like when people touch his Dæmon. He doesn’t understand how anyone could enjoy that feeling that comes from it. The electric shock of intimacy and a connection to something so raw has always clouded up Sam’s head in a way that wasn’t pleasant. Sure, he’s touched Q’s Dæmon and sure, she’s touched his. But it’s not very often and neither of them ever _ really _ enjoyed it. He had always thought that most people don’t enjoy the feeling too. 

He thought that the fact that people don’t touch each other dæmons was the social norm for a reason. That the boundaries that have been pounded into his head his entire life were because everyone disliked their Dæmon being touched like he did. 

Liam O’Brien changes all of that for him. 

**2.**

Sam’s Dæmon settled as a raccoon when he was 15. He wasn’t surprised by her settling like this. Maybe some people he knew were surprised, but to him, it just feels right with her like this. It feels natural for her to curl around his neck, whispering in his head his confidence. Whispering to him secrets and chatting into his head crazy ideas that he would never do without that little voice. 

She’s his confidence, manifesting with opposable thumbs and coarse fur that tickles against the back of his neck. 

Elivra skitters up him and laughs holding a stolen pen from his classmate — a hairpin from Q — a D8 from Laura — Liam’s glasses from the desk as they work. 

Elivra is his playfulness and his chaos. Really, it does make sense that he of all people has a Dæmon with opposable thumbs. 

**3.**

He meets Liam and Muirne at 25 years old. Later, Sam will say that his entire life changed with that first conversation. Maybe that’s not entirely true, but Sam feels in his bones that it is. (He says that about him and Q dancing that first time, and years later about the first time he and Liam played Dungeons and Dragons with a group of people who would eventually become his family.) 

But, there was something in the way that Murine and Elivra wrap together the first time, the lynx licking at the raccoon’s fur and how they smile at each other, grinning down at the two Dæmons. 

Liam is his best friend from day one. The way his eyes glow when he laughs, his smile lights up his face and the way his whole body moves. From day one, Liam O’Brien’s laugh is a drug to him. He wants Liam to keep smiling and laughing from that first conversation. He wants to hear Murine purr again in the way that Sam solely registers as a “Liam is Happy” noise. 

It’s love at first sight -- that’s how they would describe it years later -- but for now, he describes it as destiny. 

Liam is his opposite and his equal. They’re so different but so similar in so many ways. He doesn’t know how to explain it. Not looking down at Elivra being groomed by Murine’s tongue the first time they met on a panel. Not in any of the years he’s watched Murine forget just how large she really is, draping herself around Liam’s neck or climbing into his lap after a hard day. Not after years of Liam being by his side, at the best of times, at the worst of times and every moment in between. 

Liam O’Brien changed his life, like it or not. 

Liam always laughs when Sam says that his entire life changed with their first conversation, a half-smile on his face and his fingers dug into Murine’s fur. Liam never says it, but he believes it too.

**4.**

They’ve known each other for three and a half years when Sam touches Liam’s Dæmon for the first time. They’re in a hotel room on the East Coast laying in their own respective beds watching reruns of a sitcom neither of them knows the name of. Liam is slowly flipping through the pages of the book while Sam pretends to be interested in the plot of the show -- it’s boring, predictable, and not really funny. 

The title sequence plays again and Sam groans at the cheesiness of it all. As the music of the intro plays he watches as Muirne jumps from Liam’s bed to his, stretching out and laying down next to Elivra, letting the raccoon bat at her tail every few seconds. 

Sam is getting increasingly fed up with the sitcom, more so making jokes to Liam about how bad it is then actually watching the show. Liam isn’t listening to what he’s saying, and if he is, then he’s certainly only listening enough to make noises of agreeance at whatever Sam is saying. Sam is in the middle of making a bad joke when Muirne spreads out across his lap, nosing at his hand for pets. Sam freezes and he hears Liam’s book drop into his lap with a thud. He looks over to Liam whose staring back at him with big eyes. 

The lynx spread out across his lap meows demandingly, and he looks down at her. When Liam doesn’t protest, he hesitantly reached out and runs his fingers through her fur. Liam’s head thumps backs against the headboard. Apart of him wonders if Liam hates this as much as he hates other people touching Elivra, or if it’s different for him. 

Maybe it is different for him because a few minutes later Sam realizes that Murine is purring. In the heavy, firetruck purr that he’s only ever heard come out of her when Liam’s happy. Happy like the first time they see each other after a couple of weeks of not, or when Liam rambles about a really good job that he booked, or a really cool person he got to work with. It’s a noise so ingrained in Sam’s brain with Liam being happy that it startles him. 

“Are you okay with this?” Sam asks as he pulls his hand away and the purring abruptly stops. 

Liam nods almost too quickly, his mouth moving, but no sounds coming out. He doesn’t know what to say, struggling to figure out how to explain that he’s fine with it. That he enjoys sharing this with Sam. That he _ wants _to share this with Sam. 

“Do you want to come over here?” Sam asks patting the bed next to him. 

Liam doesn’t answer, he just sets his book on the nightstand between their two beds and drops down next to Sam, digging his fingers into Muirne’s fur. Sam goes back to hesitantly petting her after a second, Liam letting out a sigh and his head dropping onto Sam’s shoulder. 

Ten minutes later the intro of the sitcom plays for the third time and Sam makes a joke, but when he looks down at Liam, he’s fast asleep and the Lynx still purring. 

_ I don’t think he’s leaving anytime soon, _Elivra’s voice rings threw his head after a moment. He has a distinct feeling that she’s not talking about Liam waking up. 

**5.**

The first time someone other than him touched his Dæmon he was seven and a half years old and it was his younger sisters hands grabbing onto Elivra’s fur. She was a kitten, tiny and small and running to get away from tiny fingers trying to get her. 

The touch rang threw Sam painfully. A shot of lightning threw his spine at the unexpected sensation. It was one of the worst feelings he’s ever experienced. Someone grinding down on a piece of him and taking what’s his. 

Maybe he’s just selfish and doesn’t want to share a piece of him that walks around on four paws. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want to give that part of him to someone else. Protect her from being hurt. 

Or maybe it’s anything in between. 

The next person who touches Elivra is Q, over a decade later. 

**6.**

It’s like something changes after he touches Muirne for the first. It’s not really noticeable at first, but it’s there. The way that when they’re locked together in an office adapting an anime Muirne will settle with her head on Sam’s lap, soaking up any and all attention that Sam will give her. The way that sometimes when they walk down the street, the two of them walking in step with each other, the lynx between them, and Elivra on her back, Muirne will bump into his legs, an occasional reminder that she’s still there. Sometimes she’ll lay across his feet, stretched out and asleep as he and Liam work. 

It’s all so subtle that he doesn’t realize that it’s changed at first. That he’ll greet Liam with a hug, then ruffle the fur on top of Muirne’s head. That he easily moves to let Muirne onto his lap or isn’t surprised when she comes to him with soft eyes looking to be pet. 

Liam never asks to pet Elivra, nor does Sam offer to let him. A part of him wonders why Liam lets him time after time run his fingers through the lynx’s fur, but every time without fault Liam gets a dopey smile on his face and sometimes it’s more than just a quick ruffle of the fur, Muirne will start purring as Liam smiles in a way that Sam tried his hardest to draw out of Liam with his words. 

**7.**

Sam remembers the first time he saw someone else touch Muirne. It was not long after him and Q had made the move to Los Angeles, and they were having dinner together. Sam remembers standing in the doorway of the kitchen silently watching Amy with Muirne in her arms and Liam moving around the kitchen preparing the last of the food for them tonight. 

Sam doesn’t say anything. He doubts that Amy and Liam even know he saw them like that. He never tells them about that. But still, he hadn’t seen anyone so casually touching another person’s Dæmon before, nor had he ever seen a person functioning like normal while someone else held their dæmon. 

**8.**

“Liam lets you touch his Dæmon?” Q asks one night a few months after the first time he touches her as their getting ready for one night.

He hums around his toothbrush in agreeance, “Yeah, her fur is soft.”

“You and him have an interesting relationship,” she says and Sam isn’t sure if that’s a statement or a question. 

He nods, “We do. I love him and he’s my best friend,”

“That’s good, Sam, I just want you to be happy,” Q says then presses a kiss to his lips, her lips taste like mouthwash, “Do you and Liam want more?”

Sam isn’t quite sure what she means by that, he assumes she means having Liam touch Elivra, “I don’t know,” he says to her honestly. It’s crossed his mind a couple of times, but he doesn’t know if he wants that. 

“I’m okay with that if you are. Me and Amy had a conversation about it. We just both want you to be happy, and if that makes happy then you should go for it, Sam,” Q says with a soft smile on her face. 

Sam’s glad his wife doesn’t question his and Liam’s relationship. He’s pretty sure most people would — a lot of people he knows do question his and Sam’s relationship, even without knowing that Liam lets him touch Muirne. To hear that Q and Amy are supportive of their friendship, however weird and out of the box it might be, and that they’re supportive of them touching each other dæmons is nice. 

He kisses her again with a smile on his lips.

**9.**

Sam doesn’t think about the casual touches he gives Muirne. If he doesn’t think about it, then he can’t think about how weird it is. How off the rails this whole thing is. Time passes like that and eventually, he stops even realizing that he’s touching her. 

It’s just become second nature to run his finger threw her fur in greeting, to let her fall asleep laid out across his feet as the two of them work on anime. It’s normal for the lynx to drop her head on his lap as they eat in an overpriced restaurant and for her to fall asleep pressed against his side in hotel rooms thousands of miles from Los Angeles. 

At some point, it goes from overthinking every touch to not even realizing how often he touches her. 

**10.**

They’re on an airplane almost six years after they met. Sam is in the aisle seat, Liam asleep in the seat next to him slumped into his arm. Muirne is sitting half in the aisle and half on top of Sam’s feet and Elivra is sitting on the tray happily accepting the peanuts Sam is offering to her. 

A couple of people on the plane definitely think that Muirne is his, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

Liam walks up twenty or so minutes before the plane is set to land. He turns his face further into Sam’s shoulder, groaning as the pilot cheerfully announces that they’ll be landing soon. Sam smiles softly as Elivra jumps into his lap to let Sam put the tray up and Muirne worms threw Sam’s legs to put her head on Liam’s lap. His fingers dig into her fur. 

It’s actually surprisingly easy for him to not care what anyone else on the plane thinks of them. Which surprises him more than anything. 

**11.**

Time passes like that, a slow blissful time together. They start getting more jobs, directing and voice acting. Them and their wives have kids — first Amy and Liam, then him and Q — eventually, they start a podcast to spend more time together, which leads to them starting to play Dungeons and Dragons. 

It’s somewhere around there that Sam realizes how strange their relationship really is. They’re just them has always been the answer to that, but yet he still lets Muirne climb into his lap when she’s tired. They still fall into bed with each other in cheap hotel rooms half-way across the country when they’re away for a convention. The way that he enjoys it when Murine is close, how when he knows Liam is having a bad day he’ll dig his fingers into her fur with one hand and hold Liam with the other humming to make him feel better. 

It’s the first time he wonders if he and Liam are maybe just something more. 

**12.**

Sam pulls Liam closer. He can’t magically make this better with a silly song and his finger in Murine’s fur. This isn’t something that he can fix by buying Liam a silly nicknack or taking him out to lunch and claiming him for cuddles for the day. 

Liam cries into his chest and just buries his face into him and he holds him as close as he can.

He can’t fix this, but he can certainly hold Liam’s hand and help him along the way. 

**13.**

Vex dies and Vax throws himself at the chance to die in her place. The Raven Queen doesn’t take him and Vex is fine. But Sam isn’t so sure about Liam. The game ends and Liam is shaking, Murine half in his lap whispering something to him that Sam can’t hear across the room. 

Sam looks down at the table and tries to think of something to say. Elivra jumps onto his shoulder, her paws digging into his hair, “Go. He needs you,” she whispers.

Sam pushes himself to his feet and stops in front of Liam. He can feel and hear the rest of their little found family moving around behind them. He doesn’t say anything -- he doesn’t know what to say. So he stays silent, kneeling down in front of him, his hands hovering over Liam, but not touching. 

Liam raises his face, wet with tears and looks at Sam, before falling forward with a sob into his chest. Sam falls backward, landing on the floor and letting Liam cry into his chest. He closes his eyes humming softly, a nonsense tune waiting for Liam to stop crying. 

When he looks up a moment later, he realizes that everyone else has left the set, leaving them be, and their two Dæmons are sitting guard in front of them making they’re left alone. 

“I love you,” He whispers into Liam’s hair and the older man returns the sentiment. 

**14.**

A few weeks later, Sam climbs into Liam O’Brien’s bed. 

“This isn’t how or why I thought I’d be getting into bed with you,” Sam’s trying to make a joke, trying his damndest to get Liam to laugh and pull Liam through imaginary the heavy cloud filling the room. He doesn’t laugh. Murine is between him and Liam and he doesn’t think she’s going to move. Elivra jumps off of her perch on his shoulders and nuzzles against the big cat briefly before laying down at the foot of the bed. 

Instead, he reaches forward and runs his fingers softly through her fur and when he sees Liam flinch at the contact he pulls his fingers back. Softly apologizing as he does. He doesn’t ask if Liam is okay. He’s not okay. Instead, he just shimmies under the covers and opens his laptop. He lets the silence stand between them, he lets Murine stay between them, protecting Liam from everything -- real and imaginary that he doesn’t want to deal with. He just keeps Liam company. 

Eventually, the lynx lays down pulling Elivra closer and the two of them fall asleep wrapped together like that. 

Sam doesn’t know how much time had passed when Liam finally speaks up, turning over to face him, one of his hands pushing itself into Murine’s fur, “Why are you here?”

Sam looks up from his laptop, he’d gotten most of the work he needed to get done finished and his laptop battery was getting low, “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t have to spend today with me, I would’ve been fine alone. Why did you spend it with me?” Liam’s voice is rough like he hadn’t talked in a while and his throat was dry. The words were quiet too like he was unsure if he should be saying them. 

“Because you’re my best friend, Liam.” _ I’d do anything for you, _ “The least I can do is spend the day with you when you’re having a bad time,” _ I love you. _

“I’m not good company right now though,” Liam says and Sam watches as Murine leans back and licks at the tears falling from his face. 

Sam smiles and reaches over, running his fingers threw Liam’s hair briefly, “You’re the best company,”

Liam doesn’t say thing anything more. He doesn’t have any more arguments about how he’s just bad company right now. He just watches Sam, drifting between a state of awake and not awake. Eventually, Liam moves closer to Sam and falls asleep with his face pressed against Sam’s side and the younger man’s fingers running threw his hair. 

**15.**

“Thank you,” Murine whispers in the dark, jolting Sam out of being almost asleep. 

“For what?” Sam whispers back, careful as to not wake Liam up.

“For being his best friend. For being there, taking care of him. Any of those things really,” She says, her eyes practically glowing in the dark, staring him down in the quiet of the bedroom. 

“You shouldn’t have to thank me for that. I love him, of course, I’d do those things in a heartbeat.” Sam looks down at Liam in his arms, asleep against his chest. He looks peaceful in his sleep, almost happy. 

“Well then,” Murine says shifting so her head is on his chest too, “Thank you for loving him.”

**16.**

Sam doesn’t remember the first time he looked at Liam and thought about how pretty he was. Maybe he’d always looked at Liam and thought about just how pretty -- handsome, attractive -- he was. 

He doesn’t remember the first time he looked at Liam and wondered what it would be like if he touched Elivra. He doesn’t remember the first time he actively thought _ what if I let Liam touch my Dæmon. _

He still doesn’t offer to let Liam pet Elivra, but sometimes, when they’re alone. When it’s just the two of them, Elivra will ask him why he hasn’t let Liam touch her yet. Every single time he hesitates, struggling to find a reason as to why he hasn’t.

She doesn’t need to call him an idiot for him to understand that he is being one. 

**17.**

Muirne generally stays by Liam’s side during the game. Some days she sleeps laying across Liam’s feet, some days she’d sit with her head in his lap listening attentively to the conversation happening at the table. Today she worms her way to the other side of the table, slowly walking threw the legs until she stops and drops her head into Sam’s lap. Sam looks down at the lynx and his eyes are glossy with tears. He hesitates a second, before digging his fingers into her fur. 

Across the table, Liam looks up from his hushed conversation with Laura to Sam. He blinks a couple of times, confused by the contact because Muirne was just right next to him. Sam is looking down at the ground with his eyes pressed shut and Liam lets out a breath. 

After a minute, Murine starts to purr under Sam’s figure and when he looks up Liam meets his eyes with a dopey smile on his face. 

“_ And I wish, I had a wish,” _Sam whispers under his breath for just the Lynx to hear. 

**18.**

It’s a strange turn of events, the day of the final battle. Liam kneeling in front of him as he cries, his little raccoon wrapped in his arms. They both know their family is around them, their going to get drinks to celebrate the end of an era. Sam doesn’t look at Liam. He doesn’t know what to say to him. He failed. He didn’t get his _ wish. _

“I love you,” Liam whispers after a moment of silence. He feels the older man and the lynx shift around him, and then Liam’s forehead is against his knee. He’s sitting cross-legged in front of him, and Murine doing his best to sit in his lap, laying against Sam too. 

Sam reaches down, running his fingers hesitantly through Liam’s hair-- when he doesn’t protest to Sam’s actions, he repeats it a few more times, smoothing out the hair down and trying to figure out what he wants to say. 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. 

Laura fills in with his unknowingness and refusal to find words with, “So is Liam doing his best impression of Murine?”

Liam laughs, turning back to her and sticking his tongue out at her.

(Later that night, their little family goes out to a bar. It’s the same bar they always go to whenever they have a milestone and heavy night like this and Liam and Sam are pressed into the back of a booth, pressed together and Murine’s head in Sam’s lap. 

Sam’s on his second beer when Liam turns to him and whispers, “I love you,” a kiss pressed to his cheek. “You were going to try and save him,” a kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth, “Thank you,” A kiss to his lips.

Liam pulls away with a soft smile, and Sam licks his lips, “I love you,” he whispers back pulling Liam practically into his lap and burying his face into his hair.

**19.**

The idea of Liam touching Elivra sticks in his head. A part of him screams that it’s a terrible idea, part of him screams that it’s only fair considering that Liam lets him touch his Dæmon all the time. 

Then there is the part of Sam who hasn’t stopped thinking about just what his and Liam’s relationship is. They’re best friends. They’ve always been best friends. They always will be best friends. But recently Sam hasn’t been able to get the idea of kissing Liam out of his head. The idea of finding out if Liam is a good kisser when it’s more than something put on for the crowd of people around him. The thought of finding out what Liam feels like under him, or having Liam pinning him down. The thought of having se--- 

Nope. He’s not going to think about that at all. Nope. 

The rest of Sam Riegel is thinking loudly to himself at all hours of the day that he does not have a crush on Liam O’Brien. (Maybe it’s a lie. It’s probably a lie. Totally one hundred percent a lie. But if you tell yourself something enough, eventually it becomes the truth.)

**20.**

“You love him,” Elivra says and she says it so factually that it’s almost frightening. 

“Of course,” he says back easily, he’s loved Liam O’Brien for a very long time. It’s easy for him to say he does. 

“You _ love _him,” she says again and Sam doesn’t answer. They hold the silence for a moment, both of them waiting for the other to break. Which Sam has learned is a bit like playing chicken with yourself. 

“Of course, I love him. He’s the second-best thing that’s ever happened to me — Q being the best, which is why I don’t _ love _him.” It’s hard to lie to Elivra. She’s part of him. She knows him better than anyone in the world. Which is why it’s not surprising when she looks at him with a knowing look, shaking her little raccoon head at him. 

“Maybe you want him to touch me is the better question to ask,” she says after a moment, skittering up his arm and settling on his neck. 

“Maybe,” he hesitates and she bats at his head to get him to continue, he huffs then says, “I touch Murine all the time. Liam’s never even asked to touch you,”

“Do you want Liam to pet me or do you think it’s what you should want?” And Sam thinks she’s always been smarter than him. 

“I want him to,” he says quietly after a long moment of silence. 

**21.**

“What do you want me to say?” He loudly whispers at the lynx and the raccoon perched at the foot of his bed. They’re in another hotel room, Liam asleep in the next bed over. He lets his head rollback and the headboard thumps against the wall with a thud. He waits for a second, looking over at Liam to make sure he’s still asleep before continuing, “Do you just want me to walk up to him and say _ ‘Hey if we weren’t married I’d very much like to bone you. Also, you know that super intimate thing we’ve been doing for the last fifteen years? The one that I’ve never let you do back and barely let my wife do? Yeah, you should do that. _”

Murine and Elivra share a look, then Murine says, “Maybe we workshop it a little?”

“Yeah,” Elivra says skittering forward into his lap, “One topic at a time, Sam. We can start with your feelings and work our way from there.”

Sam narrows his eyes down at her, then looks over to Liam to make sure he’s still sound asleep. He is. “Why do we have to start with the feelings,” he hisses out. 

“Because if you start with the touching thing, you’re not going to talk about the feeling at all.” Murine say maneuvering herself up into Sam’s lap also. He lets out a sigh. Their right of course, if he started with the ‘you should touch my Dæmon’ part, he’d avoid getting to the feelings part of the conversation at all. 

“But still,” Sam says hesitating with his hand over Murine’s head, debating on if he should. She decides for him, pushing her head up into his palm, “What am I going to tell Liam? If we weren’t married,” 

“Have you talked to Q about your feelings? That should probably be step one.” Elivra says. Which is -- an incredibly fair point. He probably should talk to his wife about the fact that he’s been having freaking out about suddenly realizing after nearly twenty years that _ ‘Oh, shit yeah, my best friend is actually super fucking attractive’ _.

There must be a certain kind of look on his face because both of the Dæmons in his lap laugh, then Muirne says, “You’re just realizing that you should probably talk to her, huh?”

Sam doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just huffs, leaning over and clicking the table lamp out and attempting to fall asleep with both Dæmons using him as their own personal body pillow. 

**22.**

It’s not that Sam puts off talking to Quyen about it. Well, he does. But it’s not like he means to put off talking to her about it. Their busy people and honestly, it’s kinda easy for him to forget that he needs to talk about it. Also, he doesn’t quite know how he wants to bring it up to her. 

It ends up happening on a Sunday Night. They’re spread out on the couch together watching a movie with a nice bottle of wine, their children asleep upstairs and their Dæmons spread wrapped together on the other end of the couch. 

The movie is half over when he says, “I need to talk to you,” then almost immediately winces at his tone. 

“It sounds serious,” Quyen says reaching forward and putting her wine glass on the table, turning her full attention on him. 

“It’s just,” He hesitates, breaking eye contact and looking to Elivra who motions to him to look back to Q. “It’s just, you know how sometimes Liam lets me touch Murine?”

Q nods.

“Well. It’s just, I…” he hears the pittering of Elivra’s claws against the couch and then in his lap. She’s his confidence, she always has been and today she nods mouthing to him that he can do it. “I want Liam to touch Elivra,” 

Q blinks a couple of times, then asks, “Liam’s never touched her before?”

Sam shakes his head, and Elivra’s paw slaps him in the chest, “I also want to kiss him,”

His eyes fall again to his lap, looking at the raccoon. He can’t decide which is worse at the moment. 

“Haven’t you kissed Liam before too?” She says and Nhung climbs into her lap, “I’m fairly certain, I’ve seen you two kiss before.” 

Sam stares at him wide-eyed and unsure of how to continue. There is a beat of silence, then two, then Elivra fills in the blanks for him, “He wants to kiss Liam for real. Not just for a crowd or for the camera.”

Q lets out a surprised noise, then Sam feels her hand on his cheek, then a kiss pressed to his lips, “The other kisses weren’t real then?” Sam shakes his head, their smushing Nhung and Elivra between them now, but Sam can’t bring himself to really care, “Do you love him?”

“I love _ you. _” He says pressing another kiss to her lips. 

Quyen laughs and _ fuck, _ Sam loves her, and whispers, “I know you love me, silly. I’m asking about your husband.”

“I want to kiss Liam, but that doesn’t matter. Because I love you and am married to you.” Sam says and he watches as his Dæmon skitters up his wives’ shoulders pressing onto her hair. 

The feeling is deafening, the room around him going white as the overwhelming sensation of someone else touching Elivra shoots electricity threw him. 

He doesn’t like the feel. It’s not pleasant at all. 

“You still don’t like it, huh?” Q whispers when the world comes back into focus, Sam shakes his head. “Do you want Liam to pet Elivra because you think it’s what you should want or because you actually want it?”

Sam laughs, pulling her down into another kiss, “Elivra asked me the same thing.”

Q smiles and shakes her head, “But it is what you want? I just want you to be happy Sam.”

He pulls her closer, both of the dæmons jumping out of their way as he does, “I do, Q. I do.”

“Okay,” She whispers into his shoulder, then she turns her face and he can feel her breath on his neck, “About the other thing,”

“The part where I want to kiss my best friend,” He asks, letting his face drop into her hair. It smells like strawberries.

She hums, “Have you really never kissed Liam before outside of it being for a camera?” She says and that’s not what he expected her to say. Sam expected a lot of things from this conversation. He expected to actually talk about his feelings and figure out what they’re going to do about it together. Sam will talk it out with his wonderful wife and Liam never needs to know. He did not expect Q to ask him if he’s lying about kissing Liam before. 

“No,” he says with confusion lacing his voice, “We’re both married. I’m married _ to you _, so course I haven’t kissed him.”

“Yeah, but Sam, me and Amy have thought that you two have been sleeping together for the last ten years,” She says pulling back enough to look him in the eye, and Sam’s brain blanks. Out of everything Quyen could have said tonight, _ me and your best friend’s wife thought you two were already sleeping together _ wasn’t something that crossed his mind as an option. 

“What… What the fuck do you mean?” Sam says his eyes wide looking down at her.

“We had a conversation about it, Sam, right after you touched Muirne for the first time,” Q says like the fact that his wife thought he’d been sleeping with someone else for ten years is a totally normal thing for her to think about. Maybe it a normal thing for her to think about seeing as she’d thought it for _ ten fucking years. _

“We… No, we didn’t,” He’s pretty sure he’d remember having a conversation with his wife about fucking Liam. Maybe, he was drunk, or high. Or high and drunk. Q narrows her eyes at him like she’s looking at him to see if he’s bullshitting her. A part of him wonders what she sees on his face that makes her softly smile down at him, her palms coming up and resting on his cheeks.

“I asked about if you wanted to take your relationship with Liam further and you told me yes, Sam.” She fingers rub along the scruff of his beard, “You told me yes, Sam.”

Sam doesn’t remember that conversation. It feels like a moment he should remember, but his mind doesn’t supply anything for that happening like that. His mouth opens and closes a few time like a fish out of water, then his wife softly says, “_ Oh honey” _

“I didn’t have feelings for Liam ten years ago,” He says and he sounds like he’s trying to convince her and failing miserably at doing so. He tries again. The words come out of his mouth again and he sounds like he doesn’t believe himself. 

He just looks at her, unsure of what to say. Thankfully, it’s Elivra who breaks the silence, “The feelings thing is a newfound realization.” Sam nods in agreeance, “I think he’s had feelings for a while but didn’t want to risk losing you,”

Sam looks at the raccoon like she’d just stabbed him in the back. She’s right, he’s been looking at Liam -- different for while now. It wouldn’t surprise him if it had been years since the first time he thought about his best friend in a way he probably shouldn’t be thinking about his best friend. But she didn’t have to just say it to Q like that. 

“When did you realize I had feelings for Liam?” Sam says eyes looking down at his fingers wrapped into the fabric of her shirt hugging her hips, he should probably look her in the eyes, but he can’t bring himself too. 

“Maybe a year after we moved to LA? I don’t think I woke up one day and went ‘_ my husbands in love with someone else _’”

“I love you,”

“I know Sam,” she presses another kiss to his lips, “But Liam made -- makes you so happy. It’s a two way street with the two of you. Yes, Liam makes you happy, but you also make Liam happier. At the end of the day Sam, I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, with you. I love you so much” he doesn’t realize that he’s started crying until her thumbs start wiping his tears away. 

She smiles, soft and whispers, “I know you love me Sam and I know that you love me wholeheartedly, Sam,”

Sam nods, then whispers, like it’s a secret that he doesn’t want to share, “I’m sorry I love Liam,”

“Oh Honey,” another kiss, “you don’t have to apologize for that,”

Sam feels like he does. He doesn’t think that will change. He didn’t mean to fall in love with his best friend. He didn’t mean to realize that he might be into men — maybe he should start by realizing that, really, it’s just Liam that he’s into — as a forty-something dad. 

They sit there in silence for a moment, Q’s fingers softly running threw the curls at the base of his neck and Sam’s head buried into the crook of his neck softly crying. After a moment, Q whispers, “So you want Liam to touch your Dæmon?”

Sam nods.

“Why haven’t you let him yet?”

Sam hesitates for a moment, then whispers back, “I’m scared that I’m not going to like it,”

“Oh, Sammy,” She says before pulling his head up and placing a kiss to his lips. They still have a lot to figure out. They still really need to really talk about the fact that he hasn’t also been sleeping with Liam for ten years. He probably should also talk to Amy and clear things up with her as well. 

There are a lot of things that they’ll need to figure out eventually. 

For now, Sam is fine sitting wrapped up with his wife in his arms, crying under her soothing touch.

**23.**

Google tells him that prolonged exposure to people touching your Dæmon can mellow out the sensations that come from people coming into contact with them. He’s not sure he believes that it could ever be anything but bad. 

**24.**

From the first time that they got to play their characters for the second campaign, Sam has known that Caleb has a tragic backstory. He doesn’t know what per say. He just knows that something happened to him. There’s a build-up to that first lore drop that Liam gives them. Tension and panic and everything in between.

“My dæmon hadn’t settled yet when I went to the academy. I was still so young,” Caleb says as Liam lets his fingers dig into Murine’s fur, taking a deep breath and looking between him and Marisha, “She hadn’t settled yet when it all happened too,”

Marisha lets out a breath, then Beau asks, “Frumpkin settled late then,”

Caleb shakes his head and Sam sees his tears sparkling under the studio lights, “Frumpkin was my Dæmon when I was a child,” 

Sam lets out a deep breath his own fingers finding Elivra’s fur. He can see where this story going, or at least he thinks he knows where this story is going, “Frumpkin isn’t a dæmon?”

“I…” Liam’s voice cracks, “I don’t know what Frumpkin is. She’s my dæmon, but she wasn’t my dæmon when I was young,”

“What happened to your dæmon?” Beau asks and Marisha’s fingers flex around the pencil she’s currently holding in a death grip. Liam shakes his head and Sam aches to reach forward and hold him close. 

“I would assume that Ikithon took her,” Caleb says and Liam’s voice is small, his tongue tripping over German words and trying to hold himself together. Sam’s fingers twitch in Elivra’s fur and before he even realizes what he’s doing he reaches across the table and pulls Liam hand into his. He squeezes it and Liam looks at him wide and a soft smile on his face. 

“It’s okay, Caleb,” He says voice pitched towards Nott, “It’s okay,”

A part of him wonders if it Nott talking or Sam. He doesn’t know. 

Liam’s free hand rubs the tears from his face. Then he continues on telling them about his story. 

**25.**

Quyen’s solution to him being scared about not liking Liam touching Elivra is to start constantly touching the raccoon. It starts slowly at first, brief and light taps to her nose in passing. It’s a jolt up his spine every time. He could be prepared for her to touch the little raccoon and still he jumps every time. 

A part of him wonders if this is what it was like for Liam when he started touching Murine. If every time he touched like lynx, he would feel like he’d just been socked in the face. He wonders if it was like that, why Liam even would let him continue to pet Murine, why at the end of the day, he decided that all of this was worth it. 

Maybe, it didn’t feel like that for him. Maybe from the first time for Liam, it felt good. It felt different than the punch to the gut Sam feels every time Q boops Elivra on the nose. 

Eventually, he stops flinching every time Q touches Elivra, it takes months, but Sam gets there. It still feels wrong on some level, but it’s not as _ bad, _ as it once was. 

“What if it feels bad forever?” Sam asks one night standing in their kitchen with Elivra wrapped in his arms and Quyen standing in front of him with her hands hovering over the raccoon. Her brow furrows at that, thinking over the best way to tackle that question.

“Then it does,” something in Sam’s face must be a dead give away that he’s not a fan of that answer because she lets out a breath then continues, “You’ve already gotten better at not panicking when I touch her. I’m sure it will get better as time passes,”

He’s not so sure he believes her. 

**26.**

The night of Caleb’s lore drop Sam follows Liam home. Maybe he shouldn’t, maybe he should go back to his own home, but fingers are twitching and thought of letting Liam out of his sight scares him more than the thought of not going home for the night. 

Liam finds a bottle of wine and the two of them sit across from each in his backyard on cold metal chairs. Their silence for a while. Just enjoying each other’s company. Enjoying the nice night in Los Angeles. Enjoying the light-polluted sky together. 

“Why’d you come,” Liam asks, he doesn’t look away from the sky and the stars that try to fill it. Sam reaches blindly towards Liam, their fingers locking together, “I didn’t want to leave you alone,”

Liam chuckles, looking over towards Sam, “I’m certainly wouldn’t be alone Sam. I have Murine and not to mention, Amy and the kids too,” 

He’s silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to say what he wants to Liam. It’s complicated what he’s feeling. He looks down at Liam, pulling his eyes away from what little stars fill the sky, then looks at Murine and Elivra asleep, wrapped together at their feet. The rational part of him knows that Liam wouldn’t have been alone if he hadn’t followed him home. But the rational part of Sam’s brain was kicked out of his skull by the part of his brain screaming loudly that Liam isn’t okay. That Liam needs a hug. That he needs to be there next to Liam.

He’s spent a long time not listening to that part of his brain. Now it feels like he should. That he was just being dumb every time in the past he’s talked to Liam on the phone and thought to himself _ ‘I should be there with him’ _ and didn’t go. He was dumb to not follow Liam home every Thursday in the past that he’s thought _ ‘I should be there with him’. _ He was just a dumbass every single time he thought that he should be there but then thought better of it because that’s not what _ normal _ best friends do. 

Sam Riegel is done pretending. He’d rather be here then at home, worrying if Liam is okay. 

“I’m not allowed to worry about my best friend?”

Liam laughs, a bright smile crossing his face, “Sammy, you don’t have to worry about me, I’m fine,”

_ I’m fine, _can mean a lot of different things and Sam has a lot of experience with Liam O’Brien telling him he’s fine. And generally speaking, Sam likes to think he’s pretty good at understanding what Liam means by it when he says he’s fine. Normally, he’s pretty good at understanding when I’m fine means that he’s okay or that he’s bad. He is good at knowing when it means that he wants to be alone or when it means he wants someone by his side. Right now he looks at Liam and doesn’t know. 

Sam’s been feeling that a lot lately when it comes to Liam. 

“I love you, Li and tonight was heavy,” he whispers and below them, Elivra lifts her head curiously at him, “I wanted to be here,”

Liam smiles then drops his head on Sam’s shoulder, “I love you too.”

After a moment of silence, Sam asks, “How come you’ve never asked to pet Elivra,” Both of the Dæmons take interest in that, raising their head and looking towards Sam, curious about what’s about to happen. Liam raises his head too, looking towards Sam with his mouth agape. 

“You don’t like it when people touch your Dæmons, I don’t need… want to touch Elivra if it’s going to make things uncomfortable for you,”

Sam hums, letting the silence wash over them again as he tries to figure out if how to say that he wants Liam to touch her. Murine breaks the silence a moment later, “I think this might be Sam’s way of telling you that he wants you to touch Elivra,”

Liam blinks down at his lynx, confused by his Dæmon’s words, then to Sam who mind is completely pudding and nothing trying to think how to follow that up. He settles with dumbly saying, “uhhh…” 

“Do you want me to?” Liam asks and Sam watches as his knuckles go almost white around the stem of his wine glass. Sam doesn’t answer, but Elivra bounding over from where she was wrapped around Murine into Liam’s lap is answer enough.

It’s not terrible is the first thing Sam thinks as the same unusual sensation of electricity shoots of his spin as he watches, Elivra stands on Liam’s lap, her little paws resting on his chest waiting for pets. Liam looks over to Sam, and when Sam nods, Liam runs his fingers threw the raccoon’s corse fur, once then twice, then again and again. 

It’s still not a good feeling. It’s still not something that Sam finds to be nice. And he still doesn’t understand how people — how Liam —can function like this. His brain feels fuzzy and muddled down with fog. Liam fingers run gently threw Elivra’s fur and maybe he could get. 

It’s still not a good feeling, but maybe just maybe he could understand why people enjoy this. 

It’s still not a good feeling, but Murine drops her head into his lap and after a second he realizes that she’s purring. That deep firetruck purr that makes Sam smile because Liam is _ happy _. And really that’s all that matters to Sam at the end of the day. 

**27.**

Elivra gives him a look that night as he falls into the bed in the spare bedroom in Liam and Amy’s house and Sam winces. 

“I know, I know. I didn’t tell him,” Sam says flipping the light off and falling into the cold sheets, Elivra landing on his chest a second later. 

“I thought we agreed on feelings _ then _touching,” Elivra says flopping down, her claws digging into the fabric of his borrowed sleeping shirt. 

“I know! It just didn’t seem right to tell him while we were tipsy,” His fingers find her fur and suddenly he’s very tired, he yawns then whispers, “Soon. I promise I’ll tell him soon.”

“Me and Murine won’t let you forget about it,” 

Sam closes his eyes with a smile, “I wouldn’t want it any other way,”

**28.**

It’s a process to tell someone who’ve you known for nearly twenty years that you love him. It’s an especially hard process when your married and your wives have thought you’ve already gotten over yourself and were sleeping together already. 

Ironically enough, Sam Riegel tells Liam O’Brien that he _ loves _ him on a Thursday night. It takes a while to figure everything out. There is a lot of talking with Q, then a lot of talking with Amy. Then a lot of him panicking to Elivra about how he’s going to actually tell Liam that he wants to take things to the next level. 

(He spends the three nights leading up their date night babbling to Elivra at 3 am sitting on the kitchen counter, eating peanut butter sandwiches.)

They have a rare Thursday night off and Liam and him agreed to get dinner in place of the normal game. He stands his bathroom beforehand looking in the mirror straightening his tie and trying -- and failing -- not to panic. 

“It’s going to be fine, Sam,” Elivra says for the millionth time in the last three days as he drives in the direction of the Kincaid-O’Brien household.

“What if he doesn’t love me back,” Which isn’t something he’s said in all of his months of panic, but totally one hundred percent thinking in the back of his head the whole entire time, “We own a company together, and we’re on a show together every single week. Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

“Sammy,” Elivra says skittering over the center console as he rolls to a stop a red light, “Murine would have told me if Liam super didn’t feel that way. Amy and Q wouldn’t have thought that you two were fucking if there wasn’t already something there,” 

She sounds so confident. She’s so damn confident. He wishes felt half as confident as she sounds. The light turns green and he drives.

“It’s going to be fine, Sam,” Elivra skitter back into the passenger seat and then says, “The worse thing that could happen tonight is Liam says he needs to think about, he needs to talk to Amy about it. The best thing that could happen is sex.”

Sam sputters for a second and nearly misses the turn for Liam’s neighbor. 

“We’re not going to have sex tonight. Where the fuck would we even have sex?” This time he does pass the turn for Liam’s block, “Fuck. Elivra, I’m not going to give him a BJ in the backseat of my car like we’re in high school,”

He pulls into a driveway and turns around, Elivra is silent for a moment then says, “I’m _supposed_ _ to _ keep it a secret, but Q and the kids are going to have a sleepover with Amy,”

Sam blinks as he pulls into the driveway of Liam and Amy’s house. “What do you mean, Elivra?” She blinks at him, skittering up to his shoulder as Sam opens the car door. 

“It means your wives want you to have sex,” She says about as deadpan as she can get. Sam slams the door close a bit too hard, then rest his head on the steering wheel. He’s not ready for this. He takes a deep breath and thinks to himself, _ you’ve got this. _

He spends most of the night thinking that to himself. He’s got this. It’s not going to go terrible. It’s going to be fine. He definitely doesn’t panic as just as he and Liam are being let to their table his phone pings with a message from Q telling him just as Elivra said, with a very suggestive message tacked on to the end. 

He stumbles over his own feet as he reads the message, Liam catching, 

“Are you okay?” He asks as he catches him a hand on the small of his back. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says a bit too quick and Sam isn’t sure Liam buys. Murine definitely doesn’t buy because when they sit down at their table, Murine’s head pokes into his lap under the table and whispers to him _ claim down. _

All of Sam’s nerves considered, they have a nice dinner. He almost forgets how easily things like this comes to him and Liam. How easily they fall into conversation, Murine laying across both of their feet under the table and Elivra sitting on his lap happily chittering as Sam passes her bits of his meal. 

He almost forgets why they’re even here tonight until Liam’s phone buzzes with a text message from Amy just after they had ordered themselves desert. The older smiles down at his phone then looks up at Sam before saying, “Amy said you had something you wanted to talk to me about and that I shouldn’t let you chicken out of talking about it,” 

Under the table, Murine snickers and Elivra’s reaction is about the same. He pinches the raccoon whose reaction is to jump under the table and skitter to Liam’s lap. Which might be the worse option. 

Sam’s mind fuzzes for a second, the same white jolt of electricity that isn’t nearly as bad as it was the first time Liam touch Elivra but is still a shock none the less. He watches as Liam ruffles her fur, smiling softly down at her. 

There are a couple of ways Sam could have done this. He could of made it poetic or sappy or anything else in between. Instead, Sam looks over at Liam and for a split second over the atmosphere of the restaurant, he can hear the lynx purring. Sam is just happy. He’s happy to be here with his husband, all most sense of the word anyway -- and maybe after tonight in all sense of the word. He’s happy to be married to a wonderful woman whose supportive of the fact that he loves his best friend and encourages him to be here tonight. He’s happy to watch Liam slowly run his fingers threw his Dæmon’s fur. 

He’s happy as he listens to Liam order them a chocolate cake with two spoons so they can share. 

Instead of anything else he could of done, or said at this moment, he just says, “I love you, Liam,” 

And Liam O’Brien smiles, big and bright and just like the first time he saw that smile nearly twenty years ago, Sam wants to see it again and again. He wants to make sure that Liam keeps smiling like this as long as Liam will keep him by his side.

“I love you too Sammy,” He says back easily, just like every other time before. Their waitress comes back and presents them with an oversized cake and two spoons and Sam thanks her. A minute passes, then Liam asked, “What did you want to talk about, I promised Amy I wouldn’t let you chicken out of telling me,” 

Sam takes a deep breath and he feels Murine’s head rub against his leg and from her place on the older man’s lap, Elivra gives him a thumbs up. He can do this. “I wanted to talk about that I love you,”

Liam takes a bite of cake, “I know you love me, Sam, we’ve been telling each other this for how long now?”

A deep breath, “I love you in the ‘I want to kiss you way’,” He squeezes his eyes shut. He shouldn’t be scared. It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. Liam isn’t going to hate. _ Please, fuck don’t let Liam hate him. _

“Oh,” is all Liam says and suddenly Sam feels like he’s doing this wrong and he needs to fix this.

“God, I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you this for months and my answer is ‘_ I love you in the ‘I want to kiss you way’. _ I’ve had so many conversations trying to figure everything out and that’s the best I got?” He panicking and his answer is to babble and not make eye contact with Liam it’s working fantastically too.

“Sam--”

“I could of come up with something better,”

“Sammy--”

“Let me try it again. I can tell you that in a better way,”

“Husband--”

“It’s just you deserve better than some cliché line,”

“Samuel, I want to kiss you too,”

“And--” wait, what? 

He blinks a few times, staring at Liam for a second who takes another bite of cake, waiting for Sam to process what he just said. Liam wants to kiss him too. Huh.

“You do?” Liam nods. Then he holds his spoon filled with cake out to Liam. Sam slowly opens his mouth and lets Liam feed him the cake. As he starts to chew the chocolate goodness, Sam realizes just why Liam shoveled cake into his mouth a second later.

“Okay, now that I have a moment to get a word in edgewise. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time. Fuck, I’ve wanted to really kiss you since the first time we kissed at Mary’s birthday party,” Liam’s fingers run across Elivra’s fur and Sam shivers, swallowing the cake. 

“You have?” Liam nods.

“Of course, Sammy. You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. You’ve always been there for me. _ Always. _I love you, god, I love you so much, Sam,” Liam looks down at the half-eaten cake between them, then swallows, trying to figure out what to say. 

Sam doesn’t know what to say either, so instead, he reaches out and grabs Liam’s hand from across the table. Squeezing. 

“It’s… Sammy, how -- what are we going to do with this?”

Sam is silence for a moment, he’s not sure. They’ll figure it out eventually. He thinks about Amy and Q thinking how they’ve been having sex with each other for ten years already and both being surprised that they weren’t. He thinks about the two of them now, pushing Sam and Liam into a date night and giving them an empty house to go home to at the end of the night. 

“Did Amy tell you she and Q thought we were already sleeping together?” judging by the way that Liam drops his spoon, the answer is no. 

“What the fuck do you mean?” he says, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

“When I confessed my feelings to Q a few weeks ago she told me. It, uh… was surprising to me too,” Sam looks down as Murine re-rests her head in his lap. He scritches behind her ears briefly, happy to have something to do with his hands.

Liam looks down at Elivra in his lap and runs his finger threw her coat too, “They did?”

Sam nods. They finish the cake in silence. 

Sam rest his spoon on the plate after he takes the final bite of their shared dessert then says, “We have the house to ourselves tonight,”

Liam nods, then replies back, “Are we idiots? Have we really been dancing around our feelings for each other that long?”

Sam shakes his head, then says, “Maybe we are, Li. Maybe we were so busy with everything -- our wives, kids, work -- that we didn’t realize that we were falling in love. That we were in love, while everyone did.”

Liam frowns, “Better late than never, I guess,”

They pay the bill and as they’re walking out of the restaurant, Sam bumps into Liam and they link hands, fingers intertwining.

(They go back to an empty house, flipping on lights as they move threw the house. They fall down into the cushions, Murine laying half in Sam’s lap, half in Liam’s and Elivra resting on the back of the couch behind their head. Sam turns to Liam and smiles as the movie they’ve chosen to watch together starts to play and says, “Do you want to make out like teenagers in the back of a movie theater?”

Liam laughs and fuck, Sam _ loves _him, “That’s a pretty good idea, I think,” 

Sam doesn’t hesitate, he just wraps his hand around the back of Liam’s neck and drags him into a kiss. It's not some magically fairytale ending. Life is still complicated. They still have to talk to their wives and figure things out realistically. But it's nice. Liam O'Brien is indeed good at kissing. After a second, Sam realizes that Murine is purring. This, whatever the fuck they end up being to each other, is going to be great.)


End file.
